Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

[kayembee]

Well I have tried everything that people have told me to do on this site and have even called customer service. I can still only use my phone if it is directly connected to my Ooma Telo. This is not what I was hoping to have happen when I switched to this service. The phone is upstairs in my study where my router and modem are, so it is pretty inconvenient to have to either run upstairs to answer the phone which we never do. We just let it go to the answering machine and if we think about it we get the messages later or we have to carry the one phone all over the house. Not what I was hoping for with this...

I disconnected all the wires in the box outside my house. I connected the red wire with the red striped wired because there was no other solid red wire. I did the same thing with the green, orange and blue wires. Then I came and and still was unable to distribute the dial tone throughout the house. At first I put the splitter I had into the wall jack and then plugged the phone line from the telo to the splitter and then the phone line from the phone to the splitter. Still no luck. Then I called customer service. They told me to put the splitter on the back of the Telo in the phone port and then plug a wire into one side and plug it into the wall jack and then the phone line from the phone into the other side of the splitter. That didn't work either. I had phone service coming from one side of the splitter but not the other. So then I plugged the phone line into the other side of the splitter and the phone stopped working. So we determined that the splitter was bad. So I went to Walmart and got another splitter. I re-hooked everything up and that didn't work either. I got dial tone in one side and not the other. If I plugged a wire into both sides of the splitter, the phone would lose it's signal. If I took the other line off the splitter the phone would regain a signal. I am not sure what is going on with that. Either way, if I use a splitter It only works on one side of the splitter. The only thing that seems to work is plugging in the phone line from the phone into the splitter while the splitter is connected directly to the phone port of the Ooma Telo. This is so frustrating. I guess if no one can help me, I will be calling an electrician on Monday to see if they can help me solve this problem. I have had the Ooma for almost two months and have yet to be able to distribute the dial tone and definitely cannot use my fax machine which I also need for work. I also have lost the functionality of having the phone number of those calling me be displayed on my TV screen via DIRECTV. I truly don't want to go back to MA Bell, but if this doesn't work soon, I may have no choice....

[murphy]

It sounds like you have L1, L2, L1+L2 splitters instead of single line splitters.

[kayembee]

The wrapping that it came in says that it converts one outlet into two. The back of the wrapping says 6 conductor supports up to 3 separate lines. Then there is a statement that says - Function: Converts any single modular jack into two modular jacks. So is this device totally wrong? Should the wrapping specifically state "splitter" and/or "single line splitter"?

If so, I will go back to Home Depot tomorrow and get one from there.

Thanks!

[lbmofo]

I disconnected all the wires in the box outside my house. I connected the red wire with the red striped wired because there was no other solid red wire. I did the same thing with the green, orange and blue wires. Then I came and and still was unable to distribute the dial tone throughout the house.

I might be misunderstanding you but...at the NIB, need to disconnect Telephone Company from your house wires by unplugging a plug or getting your house wires off of screws. Once the wires are off the screws, you are supposed to leave them hanging without connecting them to anything or each other; I'd cut the exposed copper leads off so the wires don't touch each other. For info on distributing dialtone througout the house, take a look at this post.

[murphy]

The wrapping that it came in says that it converts one outlet into two. The back of the wrapping says 6 conductor supports up to 3 separate lines. Then there is a statement that says - Function: Converts any single modular jack into two modular jacks. So is this device totally wrong? Should the wrapping specifically state "splitter" and/or "single line splitter"?

If so, I will go back to Home Depot tomorrow and get one from there.

Thanks!

They are 4 conductor, not 6.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1 ... ogId=10053

[tommies]

First, you need to test if the splitter is good, or it's a correct one to use. You need a duplex splitter, and I'm guessing here that you have a line1+line2 splitter, which is a wrong one to use for your purpose.

Looking into the (female) jacks of the splitter, it has to have 4 strands of wires, similar to those in your wall jack. If it only has 2 strands, it's a line1+line2 splitter.

Another way to test is using the two female jack on a duplex as a inline connector (two female connector.) On the duplex splitter, the two female jacks are connected. On the other hand, the two female jacks of the line1+line2 splitter are disconnected: it cannot be used as an inline connector. (fyi, one jack of the L1+L2 is connected to line 1 of the wall jack/two inner line on the male plug, and other connected to line 2 of the wall jack/two outer line of the male plug)

Try to connect the PHONE port of your telo to one jack of the splitter, and the other to your phone. Your phone should have a dial tone if this is a duplex splitter, or it's a bad one. However, your newly bought one should be good. If this is a duplex, it does not matter where you put it; it works equally well regardless if you put it at the wall jack of at telo PHONE port.

Next, look at your house wiring at the box.

If it has only four wires ( I think they are Red/Green, and Yellow/Black) you don't have to do any thing. It's called daisy chain, ie from the box to the nearest jack, and the to the next, etc. All jacks are connect, but if a wire is cut/broken, it hard to find.

Newer wiring uses CAT3 (3 twisted pairs) or even CAT5 (4 twisted pairs) directly from the box to each jack (home run or star topo), you will see a bunch of twisted wires in your box. You need to connect all the wire with the same color together. By convention, the first pair used for line 1 is Blue pair (actually it solid blue and stripped blue/white), the second pair for line 2 is orange pair, 3rd is green, and 4th is brown.

The blue pair should be already connected to the metal posts, if you want to use line 2, just connect the orange pair to the other posts (below), and pay attention so the solid orange should be on the same side with the solid blue.

If you have no telephone/DSL service, unplug the little jack to the left to the metal posts. This must be done before feeding your telo dial tone to the house wiring.

if you indeed still have DSL and/or basic land line, it's usually on line 1, you can use line 2 for telo dial tone. Don't forget to unplug the little plug to the left of the posts where the orange pair is connected. Now you need a L1+L2 splitter to access the telo dial tone from line 2.

You need one L1+L2 splitter at the wall jack where the telo is, and then one each for each phone/device you plan to use. Or if you brave enough, switch the DSL to line 2, telo dial tone on line 1, this way you only need one L1+L2 splitter for the modem to pick up signal from line 2.

With L1+L2 splitter, the splitter has to be on the wall jack, and it is clearly label Line1, Line 2. Some has 3 jacks, Line 1, Line 2, and Line1+Line2 (duplex from the wall jack)

[tommies]

I disconnected all the wires in the box outside my house. I connected the red wire with the red striped wired because there was no other solid red wire. I did the same thing with the green, orange and blue wires. Then I came and and still was unable to distribute the dial tone throughout the house. ...

I think the problem is right here. Can you provide more detail about those wires. It should twisted into pair. Older one is solid Red/Green one pair, solid Yellow/Black one pair. Newer wires will twisted into solid/stripped of the same color, so it's commonly referred as blue pair, green pair, etc.

If you can post a picture of inside the box, it certainly will help a lot.

[kayembee]

Well it is dark now so I definitely cannot get a picture. I will have to see what I can do tomorrow. My box did have solid and striped wires. I matched the colors of each and used a splicer like someone suggested. There was blue, orange, red, green and another color I think.

Tomorrow I will attempt to get a picture and post it for you to see. I will also go to Home Depot to get a splitter or two. I looked at each splitter I have and based on the information I've read, I only have one correct splitter. One has 6 wires, one has 2 and the third has 4. The one with 4 iss too wide to plug into the phone port of the Telo because it has space for three devices rather than 2. With my little bit of knowledge, is the splitter really the answer to my being able to distribute my lines throughout my house?

I really appreciate everyone's help!

[kayembee]

I am including a link that I used to help me with the wiring of my outside box. This box looks a lot like mine. I also had three of those sections that say line 1 and line 2 in this picture. My is not labeled as line 1 or line 2. If I can recall that say voice, data and something else. The wires inside were solid and striped as I mentioned earlier. Hope this helps you to understand what I am working with here.

I also used the same red splicers that are shown in this picture.

Here is the link: http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/20/how- ... one-jacks/

Karen

[DTMF]

I'm handy with phone wiring, but I couldn't figure out how to do this. The friendly alarm system technician who was converting my alarm system from telephone to Internet monitoring did this for me at no additional charge. It took him less than 5 minutes of working inside the outdoor box.

If you can't DIY a fix, hire a professional to figure out the wiring. An alarm technician (If you have an alarm system) or telecom electrician (if you don't) could probably figure it out in 5 minutes. The service call might cost you as much as what you used to pay Ma Bell for a month of service, but considering how little you're paying Ooma for service, you'll be making up for that expenditure in just a few short months.